In Flower This Week

A weekly news-sheet prepared by a Gardens volunteer
Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to garden bed 'Sections'. Plants in flower
are in bold type.

1 March 2002

This pleasant walk follows the Main Path, commencing at
the far end of the Café building where a large bottlebrush, Callistemon
viminalis [Section 143], displays its red bottlebrushes on weeping branches.
Above the bed of daisies covered with self-seeded yellow straw daisies, Bracteantha
sp. [Section 303], are kangaroo paws, Anigozanthos flavidus
[Section 7], with red and yellow flowers on long stems.

Waratahs TelopeaDougs Hybrid
[Section 30] and Telopea mongaensis [Section 30], next to each
other, have different shades of open red flowers on tall, upright stems. Banksia
spinulosaBirthday Candles [Section 30] displays
its many juvenile flower spikes, now changing from green to gold, over the spreading
dwarf shrub. Wander along the path bordered with grevilleas with a few in flower
and with numerous chortling magpies and energetic tiny blue wrens hopping about
the leaf litter. Grevillea Poorinda Adorning [Section
24] is prostrate, edging the path with bright red spider flowers.

Scaevola ramosissima var. ramosissima
[Section 191H], close to the curvaceous path through the Sydney Region Gully,
is a prostrate plant with purple fan flowers covering its trailing stems. The
red flowers of Grevillea rhyolitica [Section 191S] are so bright
while the bugle-shaped lemon flowers of Prostanthera porcata [Section
191S] are more subtle. Opposite the lookout over the gully, Epacris impressa
[Section 191P], with pink tubular flowers clustering on long stems, Dampiera
stricta [Section 191P], with blue flowers, and an occasional Goodenia
decurrens [Section 191P], with small yellow flowers, can be seen amid
the many green plants. Fringe Lily, Thysanotus juncifolius [Section
191P], with fringed, three-petalled purple flowers on bare upright stems, are
there, too.

Around a corner Melaleuca thymifolia [section
191E] is a small shrub beautified with mauve feathery flowers. In front the
tall Banksia serrata [Section 191U], so dense with dark foliage,
has an abundance of large grey-cream flower spikes invaded by a raucous multitude
of nectar feeding birds, including Wattle Birds and New Holland Honeyeaters.
The display bed nearby includes the bright yellow funnel-shaped flowers of the
Christmas Bell, Blandfordia grandiflora [Section 191U] and the
cheery pink star flowers of Crowea saligna [Section 191U].

The path curves through the Eucalypt Lawn and passes Acacia
parvipinnula [Section 18], a small tree with pinnate leaves and perfumed
cream fluffy flowers, on the way to the Rock Garden, where the orange glow of
the flowers of Chrysocephalum apiculatum [Sections 4, 15R] edging
the path are quite dazzling. Eucryphia wilkiei [Section 109] is
a small rainforest shrub bearing cup-shaped fragrant white flowers. Entering
the cool green Rainforest Gully, Proiphys sp. [Section 114] has
a spray of white flowers on a bare stem surrounded by large ovate leaves. And
so, leaving this pleasantly cool area, see the large pink and white flowers
of Hibiscus heterophyllus [Section 210] down the ramp.